


Flowers

by whereJIJisalive



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereJIJisalive/pseuds/whereJIJisalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick recalls his last night in Gatsby's company.</p><p>Or, the missing piece from Nick's final manuscript.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 3: Flowers  
> Oh wow. I don't even know what this is. It feels weird writing for a fandom I've never before felt any urge to write for. But I just saw the film and this had to be written. I have read the book before, but that was a couple of years ago now. I hope this isn't too atrocious, and please keep in mind it is unbetaed, and was written at two o'clock in the morning.

I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with Jay Gatsby. It might’ve been the first time I saw him, standing alone on that dock, reaching for the dark. Or it might’ve been later, when I went up in that hydroplane with him. However, shall I be honest with myself, it was probably the day that I invited Daisy over so they could finally reunite. 

He was so happy, that day. The happiest I ever saw him. So excited, nervous, but above all _happy_. It was also the first time I glimpsed what would become the thing I loved the most about Gatsby. His never-ending hope. Even now, years later, I only have to see an orchid to be taken back to that day, to those emotions ripe in the air. When Daisy arrived, looking an absolute vision and meeting him for the first time in five years, the atmosphere in the room was tangible. It was so tangible that I somehow managed to soak it up. Their emotions became my emotions and I found myself hoping beyond hope, much like Gatsby himself, that they would get the happy ending I would later learn Gatsby had always dreamt for them. Secretly, I wanted to be a part of it. 

For the rest of that day, and indeed the summer, I felt like the third member of their twosome, always with them but always simply an onlooker. It’s difficult to describe how it happened, but when I was sitting on Jay’s bed with his head in my lap, the night before he died, I was content with not finding any words at all. That is certainly saying something for me, the perpetual writer. I suppose calling me a writer is a stretch of immense proportions, mostly due to the fact that the majority of my writing is done silently, in my own head, as my life passes by. In some ways I’m an onlooker to myself as much as to the two of them.

I was stroking his hair when he looked up at me, that night.

”You know, don’t you, that all of this is thanks to you,” he said.

At first I felt almost insulted. Because what a mess it had all become. A woman even died in the process. But then he continued.

”Daisy will call, and we will go away together.” He paused, and for a moment I could see the same nervousness that had been present on the day he and Daisy reunited. I found myself smelling orchids that were not there. ”But we can’t do it without you, darling.”

It was the first and only time he called me that, a single break from the ever-present ’old sport’. Even that had become precious to me, but this was in some ways a revelation. I smiled, and lowered my head to press a kiss to his lips. Oh, how I wished Daisy would call. That she would come and whisk us away, bringing Jay the happiness he so desperately deserved after so much hard work, and in turn, bringing me at least a whiff of that same happiness. I would have given anything in that moment, to be the third member of their twosome, forever. Perhaps I still would, if it were possible.

He held my eyes for an indeterminable amount of time, before he reached to grab my hand tightly. That night was both the most miserable and the most remarkable night of my life. On that night I did not yet understand the extent of Daisy’s - or Tom’s - callousness. I was still as enchanted by my cousin as I had been all my life. On that night I still hoped that somehow everything would work out. On that night, I did not know that the best and most flawed man I had ever known was merely a hair’s breadth away from death. If I could go back in time, to choose any time between the creation of the world and the present, that would be the night. Despite its many imperfections, it held everything I ever wanted. 

Today, I chase the past, pathetically, with alcohol and green lanterns, with music and hope. As if they would bring him back, I surround myself with orchids.


End file.
